Hello again, guys and girls!
I was looking at this topic and I was quite surprised when I saw that I didn't post anything about some things yet...
1. The Textures
In the PC versions of Rayman 2, Rayman M/Arena and Rayman 3, the textures are compressed in *.cnt files.
Since I asked the creator of
Game Extractor, a game archive extractor, the *.cnt files are supported by that program. This means that you can easily extract all the textures without even running the game once, but there is one problem. You can't open the *.gf files compressed within the *.cnt files. If we could manage to make the *.gf files supported by
Game Imager, a game image opener and editor, made by the same creator as Game Extractor, we would be able to rip and change the textures in Rayman 2, 3 and M/Arena.
2. Cheat Engine
I know our goal is to make the Rayman games open source, which means decompiling them and not modifying their memory, but
Cheat Engine is an excellent tool to do different things like modifying variables in the games, debugging, etc.
You can also do some things with DirectX.
I'm sure that more experienced Cheat Engine users can do awesome things. Sadly, I'm not experienced enough.
3. The Music, Sound Effects and Dialogues
In the French topic, they already know how to get the voices in Rayman 2.
If you use
Nova Extractor though, you can extract Rayman 3's sound effects from the *.hxc files found in the Rayman 3 directory\Gamedatabin\World\Sound\.
If you try to open the huge *.hst archive though, you will see a list of dialogues and music. It will seem normal at first, but there is one problem I never solved. I don't know if you can extract the dialogues ( I never tried it ), but the music is in ADPCM format, which means that you can't play it at all. If you see some PCM *.wav files in there, please tell me, because you can play PCM *.wav files.
4. The Level Files
Sadly, I know almost nothing about how the level files are made, especially the ones from Rayman 2 ( all I know is that they're made of *.dsb, *.gpt, *.ptx, *.sna, and *.snd, but if you're interested in this, I bet you already know that XD ), but the level files from Rayman M/Arena and Rayman 3 are almost/completely the same. They're made of *.lvl and *.ptr files.
In the beginning of the *.lvl files, the necessary texture files probably get loaded into memory ( strangely, they're in *.tga format ). Here's a screenshot of one of the level files viewed with WordPad:
Click here to view it.
The level files in Rayman 3 are more complex though. They also have *.dbg files and "transit" files, but I have no idea what they're for.
All I know is that there are more "readable" things in the Rayman 3 level files.
5. The Mystery of the Rayman Arena Online Mode
I know a lot of people here would like to play Rayman online, without using Hamachi ( you can use it to simulate a LAN connection ).
So is this feature in Rayman Arena or not? I don't know. But IF it has been removed completely, there are remains of it...
\z160:Player 1: \z160:Player 2: \z160:Player 3: \z160:Player 4: Waiting for Connection ... Loading ... \c255

100:Not connected ! Ready to play \jc\z160:There are not enough connected\lplayers to play \jc\z160:Some players could not\ljoin the Game!. Do you want\lto continue without them? \z160:Status: \z160:Rank: Map: Mode: \z160:Players: Reading Game parameters \jc\z160:Waiting for Server response \jc\z160:Ping
... and if it hasn't been removed, how can we activate it? =D
That's what I know about the PC versions...
EDIT -> Edited with the hidden Rayman Arena online mode.